“Nowhere did you hear us say we are changing the criteria for parole,” said Secretary of Corrections John Wetzel. “We have people who are ready to be paroled but aren’t because the system is inefficient, and that’s a waste of money.

The parole board is independent from Corrections and makes independent decisions.

“We’re not changing any criteria for a person to be paroled,” said Potteiger. “Getting people who’ve already been paroled out the door sooner isn’t a safety risk.”

Some inmates are in prison simply because the system of releasing them gets clogged.

After the state Senate spent months confirming Potteiger and Craig McKay to the parole board last fall, the prisons are the fullest they’ve ever been.

Clogs cost money.

With two fewer parole board members doing interviews, the number of inmates grew from 51,356 in July, when Corbett nominated Potteiger and McKay, to 51,638 in December, when the Senate finally confirmed them.

The resulting 282 additional inmates doesn’t sound like many, until one considers they cost the state more than $750,000 a month.

Wetzel can’t speed up the Senate, but he says he can fix other clogs in the system.

He says he can do that, bring back nearly 1,000 inmates housed in Virginia and then reduce the population to the point he can close housing units.

Pinto says he’s wrong.

“We’re overcrowded in every institution,” Pinto said. “There’s absolutely no way he’s going to close housing units. It’s all based on projections, and the department has never been good at projections.”

He suggested Wetzel, who came to the position from the Franklin County Prison, might be out of his depth.

“The state is a much larger animal; it doesn’t operate like a small county facility,” Pinto said. “We’ll see how this works out for him.

“This is the reality of it: We are already at bare-minimum staffing. In order to save money, they’ve got to control the overtime.”

Or trim some official fat.

“If you really want to control costs,” he said, “do a performance audit of the department. ... We’re top-heavy.”

Even without the tossed gauntlet from the guards, Wetzel is facing an acid test this year.

He knows it.

“Here’s the reality,” he said: “Everybody’s talking about spending less money on corrections. If you’re going to do it, you’ve got to change some things.

“A lot of things have got to line up for it to happen, but I think it can be done.”

He said prisons can do a better job getting people who are eligible for parole into an interview sooner.

And if the inmate is paroled, prisons can do a better job getting him out the door.

Wetzel said it can take more than 100 days from the time an inmate is paroled to when he walks out the door.

Wetzel said at $90 per day, that inefficient expense should offend taxpayers.

“It offends me,” he said.

The parole board’s Potteiger said the system has grown much more efficient over the past three to five years.

The board is interviewing inmates several months prior to their minimum release date, so if they are granted parole, they leave closer to that time.

Sometimes an inmate will be granted parole, but it takes time for his home plan to be evaluated and approved by the agent in the field.

Potteiger said agents have laptops so the information can get to them more quickly.

“Our agents have been doing an excellent job through evidence-based practices that dramatically reduce recidivism,” he said. “The three-year recidivism rate stands at 42 percent — 6 percent lower than it was five years ago.”

People who violate technical provisions of parole are now managed differently, with sanctions and special treatment centers, so fewer return to prison.

On average, it’s 930 fewer per year than before the changes were instituted.

That’s a savings of more than $30 million in prison costs every year.

Wetzel and Potteiger said additional small improvements in the efficiency of many processes will hopefully have a big impact.

Wetzel said with every decrease of 200 to 250 inmates, he can close one of the system’s modular housing units.

The guards employed to watch them can then be redeployed to other units at the prison.

And that’s where Pinto is right, he said.

Overtime costs the prison budget $60 million a year.

“If we’re going to fundamentally change how we’re spending money in corrections, this is what we’ve got to do,” said Wetzel.

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